


Embers of Responsiblity

by FalconHonour



Series: Flames By Moonlight [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alpha Peter Hale, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Not written in Chronological order, Rage/Vengeance, Teenage Derek Hale, Teenage Kate Argent, honour killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29846055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconHonour/pseuds/FalconHonour
Summary: It is Talia Hale's birthday, but as members of the lacrosse team, Derek and Peter are out trying to help the school make State when it happens.The Alpha Power slams into the older boy with the force of a bullet.Gifted to Pdxtrent for putting up with my constant stream of comments on his various series over the past couple of days. Thank you for being literally inspirational!
Relationships: Gerard Argent/Victoria Argent, Kate Argent/Peter Hale
Series: Flames By Moonlight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194233
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Embers of Responsiblity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pdxtrent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pdxtrent/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Under the Wolf Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415641) by [Pdxtrent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pdxtrent/pseuds/Pdxtrent). 



> This little series came out of my having binged first S1-S5 of Teen Wolf and then pretty much all of Pdxtrent's work one after the other. It is my exploration of why and how the Hale fire and its aftermath may have gone down in a world where Gerard and Victoria Argent are married and Derek, Chris, Kate and Peter are all at high school with Scott, Allison, Stiles, Lydia and Jackson... 
> 
> Warning: Not written in Chronological Order!!

“But Talia, we’re playing Devenford. Whoever wins tonight will make the state finals. And I know you don’t want it to be Devenford. Not after all the money our family has invested into Beacon Hills High,” Peter arches an inquiring eyebrow at his older sister and Talia sighs. She hates it when her youngest brother plays that card.

Sensing her discomfort, Ned growls lightly at Peter as he continues, “The team needs us. You know it does.”

“Peter, enough. Your alpha has said no. It’s her birthday. If she wants you all home to celebrate, then home you’ll be. Do I make myself clear?”

“Fine, fine. I see how it is. I mean, _Kate’s_ parents threw her a party when the swim team made State, but…”

“Kate, Kate, Kate,” Laura interjects, coming up behind her uncle and nudging him lightly with her hip, “You do know she’s all you ever talk about, don’t you?”

She tosses her dark hair behind her shoulders, her caramel eyes glinting with mischief, “Are we ever going to be deemed worthy of meeting the huntress turned demi-goddess who appears to have tamed you?”

“Kate hasn’t _tamed_ me!” Peter’s hackles rise instantly and his eyes flash gold as he whirls on Laura. His niece, comfortable in the superiority that is hers, both because she is her mother’s chosen successor and because she is three years Peter’s elder, for all he is her uncle, only laughs.

“Oh well, _excuse me_! I’m sorry, it’s just, you put up such a good appearance of it.”

Peter snarls lowly, but even he isn’t stupid enough to attack the Hale heiress in full view of both the Alpha and her Second. Instead, he pulls his shoulders back and smirks, “What you see isn’t always what you get, niece. As you’d know if Talia would only let Kate within ten feet of the house.”

Now it is Talia’s eyes that flash, her gaze ruby with ire for the briefest of instants, “An Argent? Across my threshold? Never in a month of Sundays!”

“Oh, come on!” Peter whines, sounding, just for a few moments, like the seventeen-year-old he is, rather than the cool young man he always pretends to be, “You’ve been worried about what Gerard and Victoria might do for weeks.” Confidence reasserting itself, he smirks, “Kate’s their only daughter. She’d make an excellent hostage.”

“No! That is not, and never will be, how the Hale Pack does things!” Talia pushes herself off the kitchen island, springing at Peter half-transformed, her eyes scarlet.

He roars right back, leaping to meet her, and the two of them have a brief tussle in the air.

Laura and Ned watch them fight, exchanging anxious glances. But as quickly as the scuffle arose, it is over, and Talia shifts back to human, breathing scarcely even impaired.

“Fine,” she groans, passing a hand over her face, “It’s my birthday. I don’t want to fight tonight. You and Derek can go to the lacrosse game, as long as you come home for dinner first. We’ll even save you some cake, if only because I know my son’s sweet tooth. But Kate is never to cross the boundary of the Preserve again. And that’s an order, _Beta_.”

Talia emphasises her brother’s lower rank in a way she never normally does, and while the sandy wolf looks mutinous, it does eventually dip its head in a vague approximation of a nod.

Talia sighs, and jerks her head in a dismissal, deliberately ignoring the way Peter still smells of dissent as he stalks out of the room and up the stairs to fetch his nephew.

* * *

Gerard and Victoria creep through the trees, careful to remain downwind of the house.

It is too dark for them to make out the details of each other’s faces, but they don’t need to. They’ve been married for 20 years, and hunting together for 30. They’ve been over every detail of every possible plan a thousand times.

Victoria slinks up to the house, the cheerful bevy of monsters within so caught up in celebrating that they are oblivious to her progress round the house, to her glances in at the windows. To the thin line of black mountain ash she scatters by each threshold, each ground floor window, as she goes.

She brushes against Gerard as she completes her circuit, and, although he can’t see her as more than an outline, he can feel her triumph vibrating through her.

“The two lacrosse players aren’t home. They’re both at the match. As Katherine said they would be,” she breathes in his ear, and Gerard nods.

“Good,” he whispers back, “Let them know the guilt of surviving. Let them know that they sealed their family’s fate the moment they got involved with our daughter. The moment _he_ seeded her with one of his _cubs._ ”

Victoria doesn’t answer. She steps away to take her place by the car. Gerard sees a quick spark and knows that is his cue.

Moving to where Katherine has told them the tunnel comes out, he dips his hand into his pocket and scatters mountain ash an inch thick all around it, before driving several spikes coated in Nordic Blue wolfsbane into the ground all along the tunnel’s length.

He’s not taking any chances. Not with the monsters who took his daughter’s virtue.

Mission accomplished, he walks back to where he can see the end of the tunnel and cocks his gun. Just in case.

Then he flicks his emitter on and off, twice. Victoria can’t hear it, not the way the wolves can, but she can see the flashing light on the end of it.

Pulling back her arm, she hurls the torch as far and as high up the house as she can.

Gerard watches the flaming brand sail through the air, turning over and over as it goes and glances across at his wife. Her short dark hair glistens in the firelight and her hungry eyes are gleaming with satisfaction, a satisfaction Gerard knows is emulated in his own burning gaze.

This is right. This is _right._ They might have to pack up and leave again in the morning, they might not see Katherine again for a year, they might never be able to acknowledge their first-born grandchild, but this, right here, right now, is _right._

These beasts have brought this upon themselves. They brought this upon themselves the moment they let their loose cannon of a beta impregnate the future Argent matriarch.

This funereal pyre of theirs is the least Katherine’s tainted honour deserves as recompense.

At that moment, the house catches. The house catches, and flames shoot up into the sky.

* * *

As Peter runs on to the field, he glances up to the bleachers, his sharp eyes spotting Kate immediately. She is sitting on the third row up, chatting easily to Jennifer, one of her friends from the gymnastics team. Her ash-blonde waves are escaping the hood of her parka, whipping around her face in the evening breeze.

He scoffs lightly to himself. What a shame Talia wouldn’t let him use her the way he wanted to.

As if she can sense his eyes on her, Kate turns her head and gives him a blinding smile. He quickly returns it, as though he really is utterly besotted, the way she likes to think he is. She raises a hand in a wave and then turns back to Jennifer, her fair head brushing Jennifer’s coppery one as they huddle closer together for warmth.

He hadn’t really needed to see her. He’d known she was there from the moment he arrived, her distinctive scent assaulting his nose even from across the field. The lycra and chalk of the gym mingled with the tang of sea salt and acrid chlorine that seems to follow all swimmers. And, underneath that, something new. Something unknown and yet familiar, all at the same time. The smell of wet ferns and warm, damp earth. Faint, barely even there, but noticeable all the same. It had suddenly arrived in her scent a few days ago, and he hadn’t yet had a chance to ask her about it.

Derek shoulder-bumps him as he runs on to the field, jolting him out of his musings, “Hey, Peter! The whistle’s about to go! Stop mooning after your tigress over there and get your head in the game!”

Peter snorts. Tigress. As if Kate is anywhere near the predator he’ll be when he’s older. Shaking his head, he ran after Derek, preparing to line up with Jackson and the rest of the first line.

* * *

They’re just about to start the third quarter when it happens. The alpha power slams into Peter with the force of a wolfsbane-laced bullet, forcing the air out of his lungs and bringing him to his knees.

He is vaguely aware of the game freezing up around him, of Jackson and Danny asking if he’s all right, but he can’t answer them. All he can focus on is the primal urge to shift, to turn wolf and howl out his pain, rage and grief at the hammer blow that’s been dealt his pack.

He can feel Derek’s grief too, rising like a wave as the younger boy realises what must have happened, as his bonds to Talia, Laura, Ned, Kyle and Cora are shattered, as he loses the entirety of his extended family in one fell swoop. But again, he can’t say anything, can’t do anything.

Involuntarily, he glances up to where Kate is sitting on the bleachers. Again, she senses his eyes on her, and this time, when she turns her head to meet his gaze, she has a nasty smirk curling her lips. She knows. She _knows._

Rage fills Peter and he itches to spring up at her, to tear her throat out. Only the presence of so many humans gives him pause.He can’t reveal himself. Not here. Not now.

A sharp ‘crack’ brings him back to himself. His lacrosse stick has snapped under the force of his hold.

Throwing the pieces away, he races off the field, oblivious to the shouts echoing behind him. He just wants to get home. He just wants to get home and confirm what, in his bones, he already knows.

As a human, the journey from school to the Hale house would take at least an hour through the preserve. As a fully-shifted new Alpha, it takes Peter barely fifteen minutes.

He leaps out of the trees, pressing his nose to the ground. They’re all there - the scents cooling and fading fast, as only those of dead supernaturals can do. He follows them round the still blazing house to where the tunnel from the basement normally comes out. Why didn’t they use it? They should have all used it! Heaven knows they’d all practised their response to a hunter attack often enough.

Six feet from the tunnel mouth, Peter gets his answer. There’s no mistaking that bitter, charred smell, Mountain ash. Whoever had done this had known to seal the tunnel off with mountain ash.

And there is no mistaking who that someone is, either, even without the silver, wolfsbane-infused bullets littering the ground around the end of the tunnel. No one else in Beacon Hills has that particular blend of wolfsbane and silver hanging around them like a cloud. Not even his own daughter.

Argent. Argent was here. Argent did this.

And since you never see one without the other, his bitch of a wife, Victoria, had doubtless been here too.

Peter sinks back on to his haunches instinctively, tipping his head to the sky. His muzzle opens wide, his maw gaping black against the leaping flames behind him, and he howls. Howls his rage, his grief, _his vengeance._


End file.
